


The Four Deaths of Venari Pallin

by Fistful_of_Gamma_Rays



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-25
Updated: 2014-01-27
Packaged: 2018-01-09 22:51:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1151749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fistful_of_Gamma_Rays/pseuds/Fistful_of_Gamma_Rays
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are a lot of endings waiting out there. Sometimes you see them coming, and sometimes you don't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For Velasa, who asked me what the hell happened to Pallin. Special thanks to anonymous_moose for heroic editing despite technical difficulties.

I'd been around for a while. Long enough to have brushed shoulders with death a few times, either through my own stupidity or sheer dumb chance. Once you've had enough close calls, you get used to them. You stop counting.

I hadn't woken up to it yet, but in my gut I knew this one was probably the last.

Wilson was dead, and T'Terek was choking out wet, ugly gasps through her mangled jaw. A store display had shielded me from the worst of the shrapnel, but the big geth that had gotten the others was already turning towards me.

The comm crackled and buzzed in my ear, but whatever the operator was saying was lost as a ship streaked overhead, low enough in the Citadel's atmosphere to hear the engines scream. The geth and I both looked up, and I saw the ship's starboard wing start to tip, primary thruster trailing smoke. Her secondaries fired hard as the pilot tried to correct, and she rolled. Her wing sheared through the building behind me with a shriek, and then everything flared white as an engine overloaded with a deafening roar. Something crashed into my shoulders and the world went dark.

* * *

There was a long period of murky, indistinct consciousness. My head and knee hurt, and there was something pressing down hard on my shoulders. I would have dropped three tiers for a drink of water.

Sometimes, noises filtered in. Metallic groans and the dry scrape of ceramic. Faint voices.

And then, abruptly, the weight was gone and the world was blindingly bright and shockingly loud.

"...got a pulse?"

"...still alive! Get the EMTs over here!"

Something covered my nose and mouth and things went blessedly quiet again.

* * *

I woke up in a stiff bed in a small, clean room with the sterile smell and inoffensive décor of a hospital. Everything hurt, but it all seemed to be there. I tried to sit up. It was a mistake. An alarm went off at the motion, and a rumpled-looking salarian in a nurse's uniform hurried in and silenced it.

"Executor Pallin. Welcome back. How do you feel?"

A stab of pain went through my knee, and something in my shoulder grated as I eased myself back down. "Stiff," I conceded.

The salarian shot me a disapproving glare. "You're very lucky. The emergency crews found you yesterday, four days after you went out of contact. You're concussed, and you sustained moderate damage to your knee and shoulder, but you should make a full recovery. Provided you don't stress the joints prematurely."

I ignored the jab as the memories trickled back in. "T'Terek? Did she make it?"

The nurse paused in checking the machinery at the bedside. "Two bodies were found with you. Both had been dead since the attack."

I closed my eyes. T'Terek had been one of the best. Senseless. "What about the geth?"

He hummed and ticked off something on his datapad. "The fighting is mostly over. There are still scattered conflicts in Tayseri and Kithoi, but they're under control. There was a great deal of collateral damage and loss of life, but reconstruction is already underway."

So the crisis was over. Resolved while I'd been crushed under a ton of debris. I should have been relieved, but there was a perversely bitter taste to the news, as if I had somehow shirked my duty by missing it.

The nurse cleared his throat. "If I may run some quick tests?"

I dropped that line of thought and nodded to him. "Go ahead."

* * *

When I woke the next day, Octavia was waiting.

She looked the same as she always had—fine dark plates, graceful hands, strongly hooked mandibles. She was reading a datapad, expression calm and collected as ever.

"Hey," I said. It came out rougher than I meant it to.

She froze a moment, then set the datapad down. "Venari. You never could stay out of trouble."

The sound of her voice, warm and throaty, made me remember all at once what it had been like to fall in love with her.

With an effort, I shook my thoughts out of the past. "I suppose not."

"How are you feeling?"

"As well as can be expected, all things considered."

She flicked a mandible skeptically. I cleared my throat. "Not that I mind, but last I'd heard you were in Cipritine."

She examined me carefully, expression inscrutable. "You were MIA for four days, presumed dead. I came here to plan your funeral."

It hit me all at once, like a punch to the gut. Four days underneath the rubble of that building, fading out little by little while Octavia wrote my memorial and the rest of the world rolled past me.

"I'm sorry," I said. It felt painfully inadequate.

Her subvocals hummed, and she nodded sharply. She relaxed after a moment, smiled faintly, and reached out to clasp my hand. "I was very glad not to have to write your eulogy."

I squeezed back. "Thank you."

For a minute, we just sat there. I stared at our hands together on the hospital sheets, warm in the false sunlight coming through the window.

"Listen..."

"No, Venari." She removed her hand, and leaned back into her chair, composed again. "We separated for good reasons."

She was right. We were both ambitious, stubborn, and unwilling to compromise. Our marriage hadn't lasted long. We'd loved each other, but in the end, we'd both loved our work more.

I glanced away. "You're right."

"I am." She said it gently, but the truth of it still ached a little.

She stayed with me for a while. We tried to talk, but we'd already said the important things. Soon Octavia got up.

"I have to go. I'll be back to see you again tomorrow."

"Thank you."

She paused, and then leaned down, briefly brushing her hand against my shoulder and her forehead against mine. "Take care of yourself."

"You too."

She left, and I was alone. I thought about the person I'd been ten years ago and the person I was now and whether there was any improvement.

After a while, I closed my eyes and let the world roll past me again.


	2. Chapter 2

Things slowly went back to normal. Octavia went back to Cipritine. I got out of the hospital. The Citadel rebuilt.

There were changes, of course. The physical changes of reconstruction were obvious, but nearly seamless–the Keepers took care of that. The changes in the way the Citadel's populace worked were both more subtle and more fundamental. Charity was in vogue. Some of the wealthiest areas of the Citadel had been hit the hardest, and a whole class of people had just woken up to what it was like to be a victim. Aid workers poured in, many of them human. You saw whole crowds of them in neighborhoods where you'd only see them scattered one or two at a time before. Other people who'd been there longer didn't like it, and we saw more assault cases involving humans than we'd ever had before.

It probably wouldn't have reached that point at any other time—the Citadel is cosmopolitan by its very nature. But the battle had disrupted our sense of security, left everyone feeling uneasy and afraid with no real way to fix it.

I was no exception. Those days under the rubble had shaken something loose inside me. A bullet or a traffic accident can make you think you're about to die, but it's a brief and private thing. There's that shocking, icy moment of realization, and then it's over. One way or another.

Coming back after being listed MIA lets you see what happens next. It turns out that a few people will miss you, but for the most part, things will go on the way they did before. Your death isn't that important.

That's a lesson the Hierarchy tries to drill into you from the moment you enlist. _Life and death are unimportant. Deeds are what matter._ It's a trite saying that instructors and recruits memorize because it sounds good. Like a lot of things you learn as a kid, it takes the right kind of experience to really understand what it means.

Shepard was killed a month after the battle. I hadn't thought much of her when I met her, but you couldn't deny that there was someone whose deeds had mattered. Vakarian quit a month later, surprising no one. Whatever good Shepard had done him was undone with her death, and what was left was an angry man with too little patience and too many targets. I was glad to see him go.

Things settled, and six months after the attack, you could barely see the scars on the Presidium. Life resumed its normal rhythm, and if you'd never visited the Citadel before, you might have thought it had always been that way.

But I knew better. That sudden, profound glimpse of mortality had sunk itself deep into the heart of the station and it wouldn't go away any time soon.

* * *

The comm chimed, the code for the Zakera docks lighting up the console. I eyed it warily. It was a rough district, but the kind of trouble Zakera brewed didn't typically warrant a call to my office.

I picked up and the visual came in. It took me a moment to place the face—Alin Talax, a quiet junior customs officer with a steady, unremarkable record. Not the sort to habitually bypass the chain of command.

"Report, Talax."

He shifted nervously in place before replying. "Uh, sir. Might have a situation down here. Someone just walked through my post claiming to be Commander Shepard."

I blinked. "She's dead."

"Dead ringer for the publicity photos and the DNA scanner says it's her. I passed her through based on that before I got a good look at that ship she came in on." Talax shook his head and his voice went flat. "Sir, it's got a registration from some backwater Alliance agricultural colony, but it's the real thing, top of the line military hardware, and it's flying Cerberus colors."

I hissed out quietly through my teeth. "No one else gets on or off that ship. Stall them if you have to."

"Yes, sir."

"Where's Shepard now?"

"On her way to the tower. Saw her get in the shuttle myself. Two others with her—male turian in blue with some bad scars and an older male salarian, missing a horn."

I spared a moment of curiosity for that. A non-human presence was a significant departure from Cerberus' usual MO. "Noted. Be on the alert and stand by for further orders."

Cerberus on station with a Shepard imposter headed for the tower. I was going to kill Bailey.

I keyed in the code for the tower squad on my console.

"Ratil."

"Three suspicious persons en route to your location. Human woman, red hair, posing as Commander Shepard. Accompanied by a turian and a salarian, both with visible scars. Detain and hold for questioning."

Ratil's forehead creased. "Sir, they're already here. We had orders from the human Councilor's office to pass them through."

_What?_

"Patch me through to the Councilor's office."

"Yes sir."

The display faded, and a plump human face came into view. "Councilor Anderson's office."

"This is Executor Pallin. Get me the Councilor. Now."

The man blinked rapidly. "I'm sorry sir, but—"

There was the sound of a door opening and the secretary looked off-screen, saying something the microphone didn't pick up. A moment later, the display jostled and another human face appeared, this one familiar.

"Anderson speaking."

"Councilor, C-Sec received a report of a person claiming to be Commander Shepard entering your office."

"That's correct. Commander Shepard was here to meet with the Council for reinstatement as a Spectre."

I paused. Human faces were normally expressive, but Anderson's was giving nothing away. "You're saying that really is Shepard."

The corner of the Councilor's mouth twitched. "Rumors of her death have been greatly exaggerated."

"She came in on a ship with Cerberus stamped all over it. I'm hoping there's a good explanation for that."

Anderson hesitated, and something shifted in his expression so quickly I almost didn't catch it. "I'm afraid that's Spectre business, Executor. I can assure you that no danger is posed to the Citadel. I'd request that C-Sec not hinder Commander Shepard in any way."

I stared at him for a moment, but he didn't budge, so I gritted out a "yes sir" and cut the connection. I eyed the console, trying to turn the situation into something that made sense, and made another call.

"Sparatus."

I didn't bother with a preamble. "I've got a Cerberus ship on Dock 24 with a dead Spectre aboard. The human Councilor's office claims she's the real thing."

He grimaced, mandibles clenching and releasing. "That's accurate. She appears to be who she says she is, and the Alliance wants their Spectre back. They're willing to push on this one."

"You're saying Spectre rights and privileges still apply."

"Correct."

I stared at him for a second before speaking. "With all due respect, I don't want anything to do with Cerberus on this station."

Sparatus shook his head grimly. "I don't like it either. I like it even less when the Alliance pushes for us to turn a blind eye to it."

I waited, as Sparatus tapped his fingers absently on the desk, thinking. After a minute, he spoke. "Shepard has a Spectre's immunity. But the potential involvement of Cerberus in Alliance official affairs is troubling, and can't be allowed to go unexamined." He met my eyes. "Investigate. Cautiously. If Cerberus is becoming active in Alliance politics, we need to know about it. But keep it quiet—no additional C-Sec involvement without prior clearance. This is a political nightmare if it gets out."

I nodded slowly. "Understood."

"Then good hunting, Executor."

The call terminated. I did my best to get the sour taste of politics out of my mouth before getting back on the comm to pass down the orders on Shepard.

* * *

Afterwards, I reviewed Bailey's security footage. It looked like her. Talked like her, from what I remembered of our brief meetings. And the turian with her was definitely Vakarian, if somewhat worse for wear. Vakarian was a lot of things, but "gullible" wasn't one of them. If that wasn't Shepard, it was a damned good facsimile.

Maybe Shepard's death had been some kind of cover story, but the involvement of Cerberus was still a puzzle. The association with a prominent Alliance figure was startling, but what really got my attention was the lack of subtlety. If Cerberus had wanted to stay unnoticed, all it would have taken was a new coat of paint on that ship.

Maybe it was just braggadocio. Maybe Cerberus believed they had the political capital to operate openly.

Or maybe they were trying to deflect attention from something else.

So I began sifting through the activities of the Alliance embassy, looking for patterns. I was half convinced that the whole thing would evaporate on scrutiny. Most conspiracies do. But gradually, I began to find traces of something big. Administrative personnel rotations bypassing C-Sec immigration screening. Money earmarked for projects which vanished into thin air. A handful of messages using non-Alliance-standard encryption protocols. None of it was enough to make a case, but the discrepancies were pervasive enough and organized enough to make me think again about that surge in human immigration after the battle. The station had been operating under emergency conditions at the time and we'd needed all the aid we could get. We hadn't had the time or resources to follow our usual immigrations process. It would have been easy for Cerberus to slip onto the Citadel without anyone the wiser.

The more I dug, the more I found, and the more nervous I became. It got so that I was uneasy leaving my notes in my office. Much of C-Sec was human now, hired after the battle to fill out the ranks. I put the information on a datapad and started leaving it in one of the storage annexes. In retrospect, it sounds crazy. Paranoid. Even at the time, it felt slightly ridiculous. But I was increasingly sure that I had stumbled onto something dangerous.

Everything I had was circumstantial. Naturally. Nothing solid enough to hang anything on, especially not a case potentially implicating a Council member. All I could do was wait and watch. Big organizations all screw up eventually. It's in their nature. I just had to be ready to catch it when it happened.

I thought I had it when Anderson stepped down from the Council and Udina took his place. The activity I'd been monitoring tripled in volume. The spike was alarming enough that I took a few more chances than I had before, hoping to finally get something concrete.

I came in one day to find my office had been searched.

It was a clean job. Careful, but not quite professional. Whoever had done it didn't know Hierarchy common script – they'd put my files back in reverse order. Slowly, I sat down, and went to work as usual, trying to ignore the chill up my spine. When the midday break came, I headed for the storage annex where I kept my information on Cerberus.

When I got there, I dug the datapad out of its hiding place and forwarded everything on it to Sparatus, along with a note on the state of my office. Case or no case, the situation had become alarming enough to take action.

The door hissed open and shut, and I froze.

"Executor Pallin?"

Two human men, both in C-Sec uniform. It explained how they'd gotten the door open, at least. They stepped forward into the room's lighting and I recognized them. Smith and Wallace were a good street team who had a regular patrol in the sector. I relaxed fractionally, but kept my distance.

"Smith. Wallace. Is there an issue?"

Wallace, the smaller of the two, shook his head. "Sir. We caught sight of you ducking in here and just wanted to make sure there wasn't a problem."

"Your diligence is commendable," I said dryly.

"Thank you, sir." He nodded to the datapad. "Can we assist with anything?"

"No, thank you, I have everything well in hand. Return to your patrol."

Smith lunged forward. I snapped backwards, but he was faster than he looked, and seized my hand, armored thumb digging at the vulnerable gap between the bones of my fingers. I dropped the datapad and hissed, trying to get my other hand on my weapon, but Smith saw it coming and yanked forward, throwing me off balance. He caught my arm as I pitched forward and spun me, twisting my hands behind my back.

"Get off me!"

Smith ignored me, but for a grunt as I tried to twist my hand through his thumbs. "Got him. Hurry up."

"Looks like it's on here," said Wallace, examining the datapad I'd dropped. "Convenient."

"Then stop screwing around and plant the stuff. I can't hold him forever."

"Don't rush it. It needs to look good," Wallace grumbled, but opened up his omnitool interface and initiated a connection with the datapad.

I shouted and twisted, hooking my left spur under Smith's knee and heaving. It felt like someone had taken a set of pliers to the joint, but I felt the spur dig into the gap behind the knee armor and Smith went down hard, freeing one of my hands. Wallace shouted something and fumbled at his sidearm. I drew faster, and put a bullet through him before he finished sighting. Smith's hand wrapped around my aching knee and pulled me down.

For a long minute, we wrestled for the gun. Smith was heavier and about twenty years younger. I was taller and pointier. I got lucky and managed to dig my elbow into his solar plexus. Smith's grip on the weapon loosened fractionally, and I wrenched it free.

I shot him point blank between the eyes.

For a second afterwards, I lay under the body, breathing hard, the buzz of adrenaline wearing off and the ache of my knee and hand coming back. I closed my eyes once, slowly, then rolled the body off me and limped over to check on Wallace.

I'd gotten luckier than I thought. My shot had skated under his jaw and through his neck. He must have bled out in seconds. The corpse was still holding the datapad.

The door hissed open again, and I ducked behind a storage unit.

Three cautious footsteps, and then a pause and the rustle of cloth as the intruder bent over Wallace. I risked a look out.

Bailey. Not an officer I would have picked out as being on Cerberus' payroll. I wasn't fond of him—too many things in his district happened off the books. But he didn't suffer fools or thugs, and he didn't distinguish between criminals or victims of difference species.

He picked up the datapad, and I weighed my options. I decided to take my chances and came out, pistol raised. I needed that evidence.

"Stand up slowly. Keep your hands where I can see them."

Bailey froze, and then complied, still holding the datapad. For a moment, we stared at each other over the still-warm bodies.

"Why are you here, Captain?"

Bailey's face remained carefully neutral. "Got a line from Councilor Udina that you might be mixed up with some unsavory sorts. He sent me over to see what you were keeping down here."

My mandibles flared out wide at that, and I quickly controlled my expression. Maybe Bailey wasn't knowingly involved with Cerberus, or maybe he was. Either way, I didn't trust him with whatever Wallace had downloaded onto that datapad. I nodded towards it. "Put that on the floor and slide it over. Gently."

He edged forward and did as I said. I took the pad and tucked it under my arm one-handed, watching for any suspicious movement from Bailey. Nothing came. He was between me and the door, and I motioned him to step aside. I hesitated a moment before speaking again. Maybe Bailey was just as guilty as Wallace and Smith had been. But if he wasn't, he deserved the warning.

"Don't trust Udina. He's dirty."

He stepped aside, watching me carefully. "He said the same about you. And it's you I found with two dead officers and a datapad with your picture all over it."

"This isn't what it looks like," I ground out.

Bailey watched me, his eyes narrow and hard. For a moment, his gaze flicked back to the bodies, and then some of the tension went out of his face. "You know, I'd tell anybody else to save it for the arresting officers. But nothing about this smells right. I've worked for you for a while, and you're a cold, uptight son of a bitch, but you're as straight as they come." He paused. "And I've worked with enough turians to know you guys can't lie for shit." He looked me right in the eye. "Get out of here. Get off station. Don't come back."

Under any other circumstances, I would have torn a strip off him and broken him back to officer for that. Things being what they were, I said, "Thank you."

"Don't thank me. Just don't make a liar out of me."

By the next morning, I was off-station and officially dead. Again.


	3. Chapter 3

I drained the funds from my private account before the news of my death made it out and left on the little Faronex Nova Octavia and I had bought when we'd married. It was a good civilian class ship, even after all these years. We'd talked about retiring on it someday and planet-hopping through the Serpent nebula, but we'd never done it. I hadn't been able to make myself sell it when we separated. I wondered whether Octavia would notice it was missing, or if Bailey had vanished that as well.

At first, I was sure the situation was temporary. I'd sent everything I had to Sparatus, and my disappearance afterwards should have alerted him to the situation. But days passed, then weeks with no news of an inquiry. Either my message had never reached him, or he was unable to take any action.

The datapad I'd kept my records on originally was a lost cause. Whatever virus Wallace had uploaded had overwritten my data with a list of transactions suggesting I routinely took bribes. I'd lost my home, my occupation, and my livelihood, and all I had to show for it was a pad full of lies.

It turns out that your deeds can be just as meaningless as your death, in the end.

I headed out to Kypladon because no one goes to Kypladon, and put the ship into a long slow orbit. I hit the fuel depot once to resupply, but I didn't bother going groundside. There didn't seem to be much of a point. I could have gotten out, I suppose. Could have found security work in some other part of the galaxy, or taken an early retirement. My thirty years of service had been up for more than a decade–I'd done my duty by reporting my findings to my superior and I didn't owe anyone anything.

But the Hierarchy teaches you about unfinished business, too.

I wrote down all the evidence I could remember—people, locations, accounts—and sent it direct to Valern and Tevos. Sparatus' communications were almost certainly under surveillance, but it was possible the others were still clear.

The message to Tevos bounced, but Valern's disappeared silently into the extranet. I could only wait and hope that it found its target.

A week later, I got my answer.

_Executor:_

_I am pleased to learn of your continued good health. The STG has been able to corroborate some of your information and an investigation is ongoing. We are grateful for your timely and courageous assistance and are not ignorant of the risk you took. We welcome any further aid you can offer without unduly endangering yourself, and will ensure that communications with you are secure._

_Councilor Aegohr Laenin Tal Iole Valern Aetil_

I breathed easy for the first time in weeks. The STG didn't abide by C-Sec's regulations. They could find what I couldn't without an official investigation. I fired off a reply and went to bed feeling like myself again.

When I woke up, the Reapers were here.

* * *

The alarm jolted me awake. I got to the helm and found the comms choked with distress calls. Thousands and thousands of ships, broadcasting an SOS over the comm buoys for anyone who could hear them. I couldn't make sense of it at first. Couldn't understand what had happened. The comms were so flooded it took me a half hour to get visual on one of the Hierarchy lines.

The first thing I saw was a planet on fire. Whole swathes of continents burning, black plumes of smoke trailing through the atmosphere. I caught sight of the famous profile of the Vallan peninsula, and realized I was looking at Taetrus.

Gradually, I managed to sort enough sense out of the comms to piece together what had happened. Earth had been taken. Taetrus had been destroyed. Palaven was under heavy bombardment.

I hoped numbly that Octavia had gotten out. That she might still be on the Citadel, settling my affairs.

Cerberus was mixed up in it somehow. The comms were relaying multiple offensives on Alliance targets. That broke through the shock, got me thinking again.

I got up and set a course for the Citadel. I couldn't do anything about the invasion. But Cerberus was something I could grasp hold of and fight.

* * *

The docks were more crowded than I'd ever seen them, packed with refugees, mostly human, batarian, and turian. Right now, Immigration was passing them through rapidly, but I had to wonder how long it would be before they would start turning them away.

I still had my residence chit on me and slipped through into the lower wards without trouble. All the public terminals were running the news from the front, even the advertising kiosks. Small crowds gathered around each one, watching quietly. Refugees crowded public benches, all with the same blank, numb expression of exhaustion. That undercurrent of fear that had found its way onto the Citadel after the battle had risen to the surface and was running strong.

I found the address of the safehouse Valern had sent me and set to work.

The STG were very good at what they did. I pointed them in the right direction and didn't ask where they got their information. But Cerberus were good at what they did too. It was the same problem all over again—a lot of suggestive activity, but nothing definitive enough to take action.

When I wasn't sifting through records with Valern's people, I looked for Octavia.

She hadn't been on the Citadel when the invasion hit, but I held out hope that she might not have made it all the way back to Palaven before the bombardment. I checked the immigration records and watched the growing refugee camps by the docks. I made myself check the daily casualty lists too. Her name never appeared, but that wasn't anything to hang a hope on. With communications being what they were, there were a lot of people lost whose names would never make it into any record.

I wasn't sure what I'd say if I found her. I couldn't blame her if she didn't want anything to do with me, after writing me two memorials. After all these years, we didn't owe each other anything. Separation had been the right decision for both of us. I didn't regret it. I still needed to know that she'd made it out.

As it turned out, she found me.

"Venari?"

I froze and turned, and there she was, standing still against the current of the crowd.

"Octavia," I said stupidly.

She took a step closer. She was worn out, tired around the eyes. But she still had that simple, subtle grace. She took a long look over me, mandibles pressed tight against her face. "It is you," she said, subtones thick.

Then she hit me. I stumbled, blinking back tears at the sudden pain to my jaw.

"You son of a bitch. I thought you were dead."

I rubbed my mandible. "I guess that makes us even."

It came out harsher than I meant it. Octavia was brought up short. My stomach twisted.

I said, "I'm sorry."

She said, "That's what you said the last time, too."

We stood there, motionless. The crowd parted around us with scarcely a ripple. We got a few curious glances, but most people had enough troubles these days to stay out of ours.

I tried again. "I'm glad you're safe."

Octavia stared me down, and I was sure she would walk away. Then, her shoulders relaxed and her eyes lost some of their edge.

"I'm glad you're safe too," she said. And then, more quietly, "What happened?"

I swallowed a sudden thrum in my vocal cords. "Not here. Come with me."

We made it back to the safehouse and I told her everything. Maybe it wasn't the smart thing to do, but I was past caring.

She told me everything too. She'd been on the long shuttle with a stop in Illium. By the time they were ready for the jump to Palaven, the relay had been shut to incoming traffic and the passengers were stranded. She'd come back to the Citadel for lack of anywhere else to go.

We sat in an easy silence together after we'd told our stories. I felt calmer around her than I had in a long time.

"You could stay here, if you want."

Her gaze was level. "We've had this conversation before."

"Not like that," I said, and was surprised at how much I meant it. "But it has to be better than the refugee camps."

Octavia gave a thoughtful hum, and was silent for a while, searching my eyes with hers. "All right," she said at last. "If you're sure."

"I am."

We fell into a rhythm. Octavia spent most of her hours at the camp clinics, where doctors were short, and I spent most of my time chasing loose ends with Velarn's people. Neither one of us made any attempt to cross the line we'd drawn between us, but gradually, we relaxed around each other. Learned to talk to each other again. It wasn't exactly comfortable, but it was amicable. Something unexpectedly good in those days.

Cerberus was building up to something big, we were more and more sure of it. We saw more activity-bolder activity–than ever before, and it showed no signs of slowing. It had us all on edge. Eventually, we knew, someone would make a mistake. We could only hope that we would catch it while we still had a chance of stopping it.

Finally, we got our break. A string of enormous transactions with Udina's personal signature. It told us less than I would have liked–we didn't know who or what the money was going to. But it was the most solid thing we had, and we were increasingly sure our time was running out. We weren't going to get anything better. I took it to the Councilor.

"You are absolutely sure?"

"It's damning enough to warrant an official inquiry."

Velarn set the datapad down with a click. "Very well. I will contact Commander Shepard. With luck, the situation will be resolved shortly."

I blinked and fanned my mandibles. "Why Shepard? She was involved with Cerberus in the past."

"She's still well-regarded in the Alliance, and as a Spectre, she has the authority to take a Council member into custody." Valern sighed and rubbed briefly at the base of his horns. "She's taken part in actions against Cerberus in the past, and her reports have consistently indicated that she cooperated with them only out of necessity. The war has made the political situation almost untenable. We cannot risk a schism with the Alliance at such a time–we must take care to avoid any appearance of prejudice in prosecuting Councilor Udina. A human agent will placate the more suspicious elements."

My mandibles worked up and down in consternation. "This whole thing could go sour fast if she's still on their radar."

"We have little time, if your reports are accurate. Shepard is the most expedient choice."

I didn't like it, but it wasn't my call. "Be careful."

Valern nodded. "I will take every precaution."

* * *

Cerberus got to the Citadel before Shepard did.

They targeted C-Sec first. Smart. It must not have gone entirely as planned, though. Someone managed to get a message out onto the PA before they finished, and the rest of the station locked down tight.

I was stuck in the safehouse while other people did what should have been my job. I watched the windows. The streets were empty at first, and I hoped the attack might be contained. It didn't last. Soon enough, a shuttle landed, and then another. Cerberus established themselves quickly, taking control of the shuttle station and elevator access before sweeping rapidly through the streets. I messaged Octavia. _Don't come back. Not safe here._ After that, all I could do was watch and wait.

When I heard the front door open, I froze. Then I began moving towards the back door as quietly as I could.

I could hear the steps of at least two sets of armored boots at the other end of the apartment, moving methodically through the rooms. I reached the bedroom with the exit to the garden and hit the lock on the room door. The noise would alert the intruders to my location, but it would also buy me enough time to get away, I hoped.

That caution probably saved my life. When the garden door burst open, I was on the other side of the room, out of reach of the intruder.

"Trying to crawl away, Executor?"

He was human, male, with extensive cybernetics. Always dangerous. You never knew what you were dealing with with black market augmentations. I caught the shine of a targeting laser on his off hand, but no other ranged weapons. His other hand gripped a sword, which told me everything else I needed to know about him.

Swords are obsolete, no matter what those clowns at Armax tell you. A gun will do the job quicker, and an omniblade will do everything a sword can if you lose your gun. People who use swords do it because they like being up close. They like to make things personal. They like to think that makes them honorable. And they always think they're good enough to get away with it.

I didn't have a gun and I didn't have a sword, so I flicked my omniblade app into life. It wasn't much, but it was better than nothing. I edged to the side, hoping to lure him into circling away from the exit. He smirked and let me.

"You shouldn't have come back to the Citadel. If you'd stayed off station, you wouldn't have been worth the trouble."

He lunged, and I twisted to the side. I took a chance and stepped in closer, aiming a blow at his extended elbow. He snapped back and his sword bit deeply into the groove of my forearm plating. I hissed at the pain, and felt a wash of blood down my palm as my fingers uncurled, but I'd gotten what I wanted. Our positions were now reversed–he was in the center of the room, and I had the garden door to my back.

He went for me again, slid under my parry and landed a hit on my other arm in almost exactly the same spot. If he'd pressed me then, that would have ended it, but the bastard was toying with me. I let the momentum of the attack carry me backward, and jammed my elbow into the door control.

It opened, and I stumbled into the bright light of the garden, my attacker close behind me. He must not have expected me to run, because he quit playing around. I avoided the first two blows and parried the third, but he was too fast. He landed a kick to my ankle that collapsed my leg under me. He was on me instantly, boot grinding my blade hand into the turf and sword at my throat.

That same frozen moment of realization. That same icy feeling in my gut.

_Well,_ I thought, _this is it._

Then there was the high pitched whine of thrusters pushed to their maximum, and shouts and a cacophony of gunfire at deafeningly close range. My assailant looked up and cursed, and then leapt away. A bullet whipped through the air where he had been, afterimage streaking across my vision. More fire followed, chasing him into the cover of the house.

I scrambled to my knees, feeling my ankle fold under me, and saw a battered sports car hovering in autopilot over the garden's balcony. Octavia leaned out the window, clutching a bone-white assault rifle that looked like it had come off of a Cerberus trooper.

"Get in!" she roared. I obeyed as fast as my ankle would let me.

I lay there breathing hard and bleeding all over the seats while Octavia got us out of there. No pursuit followed, and we headed down the length of the Citadel into the lower wards.

"Thank you," I told her, once I'd regained my breath.

She clicked her mandibles and threw me a look I couldn't quite decipher. "I headed out when I got your message. I've had enough of writing your memorials."

I laughed a little at that, and she did too. I don't think either of us was laughing because it was funny.


	4. Chapter 4

The coup was over as quickly as it had begun. After the initial shock of the invasion, C-Sec was able to regroup and push Cerberus out. Shepard had arrived in time to prevent the assassination of the Citadel's leadership. Better late than never, as the humans say. The station was left to put itself back together again, slowly and painfully.

I missed most of it, stuck in a field hospital while they tried to fix my hands. That bastard Leng had hit the big tendons in both of my arms. I could move my thumbs, but couldn't curl the fingers on my right hand at all. I could manage some movement on the left, but the doctors made me stop.

At any other time, it would have been a quick hospital visit and a week's recovery. But supplies were growing scarce now. Weaves and medigel were going to the front, and those of us at home made do with old-fashioned methods. So I got my tendons stitched up and waited for them to heal.

Octavia stuck with me. I wouldn't have blamed her for leaving me to sulk in my hospital bed alone. We talked, more than we had in years. Neither one of us had any family left, and in those days no one wanted to be alone.

I think by then we all knew the end was coming. The news reports tried to focus on the victories, but everyone could see the refugees streaming in. Everyone knew about the shortages. Everyone had a brother or sister or parent or cousin missing or killed. The Citadel kept going, but everyone knew it wouldn't last.

For me, it felt like it had been a long time coming. I'd been three times lucky. Those kinds of odds catch up with you eventually.

When the Reapers got there, we were all half expecting it.

We fought, of course. But we were all tired, and none of us had much left to fight with. We could see them surrounding us out in space from the wards while the Citadel fleet made their last stand, before they closed up the arms and left us in the dark with their creatures.

Octavia still had that Cerberus rifle, and my left hand was strong enough to pull the trigger on my regulation pistol. We fought while we could, and then headed for the wards.

Others were doing the same. We passed scattered groups and individuals, all heading away from the Presidium, where the Reapers had cemented their control. Sometimes we would pass a pack of the thralls, the ones that used to be people. We kept our heads down and stayed quiet when we did. We weren't ready to fight that last fight.

We found a tiny place with thick walls and small windows abandoned out in Kithoi. The owners were gone, but they had been turian and they'd left their food supplies. It was as good a place as any. We locked the door and we waited there, in the dark, for the end.

When it came, it was brighter and louder than we expected.

It started with a quiet hum, almost too soft to hear. Gradually, it got louder, a sound like wind through a tunnel, till the floor and the walls shook with it. Octavia and I looked at each other. I held out my hand and she clasped it, and we leaned up against each other and shut our eyes while the world washed red.

* * *

When I opened my eyes, everything was still. The shouts and gunfire in the distance had stopped, and it was quiet enough to hear our breath in the room. Octavia opened her eyes, and we slowly separated.

"What was that?"

She shook her head. "I don't know."

We waited, but it stayed quiet, and eventually I opened the door.

My mandibles dropped in shock, and I could hear Octavia's startled inhalation behind me. The Citadel's arms had opened fully. The sky above us was alien, but clear. No Reaper ships in sight. We both stood there staring at it for a long, silent moment, alone in the wreckage of the street.

We spent the rest of the afternoon packing up the food that wouldn't spoil and trying to hook into an open communications channel on our omnitools. We had no luck on the comms, but we knew something had happened. There was nothing left to lose at that point. So the next day, we began the trek back to the Presidium.

It was a nightmare. In the light, we could see the destruction clearly. The clean, smooth streets of the Citadel were ruined, choked with bodies of every species. There was the battlefield stench of blood and bowels everywhere, and the Keepers picked their way carefully among the dead, dragging them one by one into the tunnels.

The Reapers were dead too.

They seemed to have dropped where they stood, whole squads of them fallen in the streets. The Keepers gave them the same treatment they gave everyone else, pulling them into the Citadel's innards to feed the protein vats.

As we got closer to the Presidium, we began to meet survivors, emerging from the wreckage or returning from the wards like us. No one knew what had happened, but no one had met any living Reapers, either.

The Presidium itself was almost unrecognizable. The Citadel tower was still intact, but the administrative offices next to it were nothing but slag. The reservoir had overrun its banks, wetting the streets, and the monuments had been crushed to rubble. Survivors picked through the remains here and there, all wearing the blank, exhausted expressions of people who had grown numb to shock.

It hit me harder than I expected, to see it like that. I'd spent thirty years of my life on the Presidium.

We stood there, me taking in the scene and Octavia watching me. After a moment, she gently touched my shoulder.

"I'm going to see if there are any survivors in the hospital. Will you be all right?"

I got myself together and nodded. "I'm fine. Meet back here in an hour?"

"All right." She gave my shoulder a gentle squeeze and headed off. I stayed there for a minute taking in the details, before continuing on my way.

Out of habit more than anything else, I found my way to C-Sec HQ. It was as wrecked as everything else. Windows smashed and bullet wounds in the walls. No bodies, at least. The Keepers must have cleaned up already.

My old office was clean. Chellick had been Executor after I'd left, and he'd died in the coup. No one else had bothered to move in. The kava machine still worked, and I made a cup just to keep my hands busy. When it was done, I sat at my old desk and drank it, staring out the broken windows at the smoking ruin of my home.

We had been through a lot. Three invasions, each more damaging than the last. I knew the physical damage could be fixed, scars fading until they disappeared. But I also knew we would never be the same again.

I let out a deep breath, and tested the button for the station-wide PA. It crackled to life, and I felt something steady inside me.

You had to start somewhere.

"This is Executor Pallin. All C-Sec personnel report to HQ."


End file.
